Yesterday, we came back from a lovely holiday. (Soon some pictures of those good times..) I think one of the nicest things about coming home is going through your mail! And I was lucky: three of my best magazine friends were waiting for me : 101 Woonideeën, vtwonen and.. the new IKEA catalogue! And on top of it: I recieved the birthcard I designed for our new neighbour Tijn! The cards were printed during my holiday so I was so curious to see the result.

A few weeks ago I attended a workshop “Painting ceramics” by artist José den Hartog, which was held on account of the Handmade expositie in Museum Boymans. Of course.. I was not satisfied by the result that day. The background was smudgy and too dark. The ‘delfst blue’ color looked purple and too light to see the drawing, which made it difficult to paint:

But how surprised I was to see the result after glazing and firing, a few weeks later! The colors turned out to be perfect with a sharp drawing on top of it. And of course.. looking closely I see a lot of flaws. It was so difficult to make straight lines with the thin pencil. (And I even missed a few lines, did you see them?) So, it’s not perfect, but hey, it’s handmade!

About a year ago, I forgot to celebrate my first year of blogging. This year, I forgot to celebrate my second year! I guess you can say I’m not really good at remembering meaningfull dates. But also, I’m not very impressed by achieving this milestone, because it didn’t cost me a lot of effort..

Although I’m less present online at the moment, I still love blogging and get so inspirered by reading all those other lovely blogs. So to celebrate blogging in general, I’ve baked, made a very big pie (no big deal, really..) and I want to share it with all of my readers (thanks for following me..) and all the bloggers I love to read!

I’m giving myself some illustration assignments in order to ‘step outside my comfort zone’. (Never thought I was going to use this phrase, but that’s because of those zones, I guess.) First task: make a drawing with a person in it, because I always avoid drawing people. It’s time to get rid of that ridiculous habit of saying: “I can’t.”

I chose to draw myself in a funny situation last week: I was forced to ride on Jeroen’s way to small bike, while my own bike was broken. It felt like riding on a childrensbike, with my knees up in my neck. On top of it, it started raining when I was just halfway between home and work. I felt very unhappy, so far from my comfort zone.
Result of the assignment: I like the image and I’m thrilled I finally draw a human! The bike is still a bit bigger than the one I had in mind. I still have to push myself a bit further out of that ‘zone’..

Another lesson learned: As I was coulouring the illustration, I was confronted with my boring choice of clothing: black coat, black tights, black shoes, black gloves, with a subtle darkgreen scarf. Without using my ‘artistic freedom’ the illustration would have looked like this:

I really have to do something about that choice of colour in real life! (Another comfort zone to challenge..) And I LOVE the orange shoes, where can I buy these?

Last sunday I met some very nice tweeters and bloggers at #meetthetweet, organised by Rivka, Nina en Ria. It was very refreshing to talk with all these enthusiastic creative people. We all seem to have the same problem: lack of time. Why are there only 26 hours in a day? (And don’t tell me I’m wrong..) We all want to have a satisfying job, be creative in some way or another, have nice social live and perhaps also have a happy family. It’s possible to have it all, (especially if what you love is what you do), but it would be so much easier if I had 8 hours a day extra, ..to sleep. Goodnight!

(We were asked to share our most inspirational quote. This one is mine)

I decided to crochet a babyblanket for my pregnant friend. I started in spring 2012, so I would have plenty of time to finish the blanket in December. Then in October, she asked me to make the birthcard for her child. Of course! I felt so honoured to do so. But I warned her: there would be no time left to work on the blanket..

As always I loved the illustrating proces. I spend a lot of time experimenting with colors, layers, patterns and composition. I wanted it to be a personal card, so her cats Spike and Storm had to be in the design. I doodled and studied the cats. How to draw a totally black cat..?

Every week I looked at the design and changed elements. Luckily Saar was born precisely on the expected date, otherwise I would still be designing. This is the result:

Now I can work on the blanket again! Hopefully it’s finished before summer..

Hidde is talking about his upcoming 5th birthday for a few months now. Which children have to be invited, what to eat, what to play, he’s taking care of everything. Luckily the party invitation design I made, was accepted by him..